1. Verity £3,396,610 – NE

Took £1.19m 35.03% Friday; £1.2m 35.33% Saturday; £1.007m 29.64% Sunday.

543rd biggest opening between Paranormal Activity 3 and Ocean’s Twelve (close to American Hustle, Bridesmaids, What Women Want and The Devil Wears Prada) and 805^th biggest inflated opening between King Arthur and The Gentlemen (close to Dangerous Minds, Sleeping With The Enemy, The Social Network and America’s Sweethearts).

22^nd biggest opening over the last 52 weeks between Goat and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (close to Scary Movie, Scream 7, The Sheep Detectives and Hamnet).

Opened in 636 cinemas (950 screens) 208^th widest opening similar to Deadpool 2 (close to Hoppers, Jumanji: The Next Level, The Suicide Squad and Blade Runner 2049).

The UK opening was 10.6% of US similar to The Other Woman, Burn After Reading, Fight Club and How To Be Single.

The first weekend of October has been a lucrative launch date for female dramas over the years going back to The Devil Wears Prada 20 years ago, more recently A Star Is Born, The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl. While The Housemaid opened £4,423,435 (£3,057,587 without previews) in December, both are based on guilty pleasure novels that sold millions of copies.

Starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson (recently appeared in the music video of Taylor Swift’s new song Patient Zero and they both appeared together on Saturday Night Live) and also starred in the ‘erotic’ thriller 50 Shades trilogy a decade ago.

It is the fifth film released this year starring Anne Hathaway, after Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, and The End of Oak Street. She will next star in Alone At Dawn, directed by Ron Howard, due for release next year, and will then film Days of Thunder 2 for release in 2028.

Verity is a very different kind of film from other Colleen Hoover adaptations. It is an erotic psychological thriller, a genre that has struggled to find audiences for 25 years. Recent attempts like Babygirl and Deep Water have tried to revive it, with mixed success. Verity likely sits between Gone Girl and the Fifty Shades trilogy Dakota Johnson starred in a decade ago.

It is also a very different kind of film for Anne Hathaway. Audiences have grown up with her in very different roles, and it can feel awkward seeing an actor in such a different part, even though we understand they want to play different characters.

Colleen Hoover’s 2024’s It Ends With Us opened £4,516,760 taking £21,241,321, but her last two adaptions were not as successful, 2025’s Regretting You opened £1,275,979 taking £6,186,391 and 2026’s Reminders of Him opened £1,081,952 taking £4,068,843m, but neither had the same star power of Blake Lively or Anne Hathway.

The 80s and 90s saw many erotic thrillers.

Good: Fatal Attraction, Black Widow, Someone To Watch Over Me, Body Heat, The Last Seduction, Basic Instinct, Indecent Proposal, Bound, Wild Things, Disclosure, Eyes Wide Shut

Bad: 9½ Weeks, Poison Ivy, Crush, Crash, Final Analysis, Physical Evidence, Shattered, Guilty as Sin, Dream Lover

Absolutely Awful: Color of Night, Body of Evidence, Jade, Sliver, Lolita, Diabolique, Traces of Red, Zandalee, Showgirls, Wild Orchid, Two Moon Junction, Whore, The Crush.

The genre has effectively died off since. In the last 26 years, only a handful of erotic thrillers have made it to cinemas: Unfaithful (2002), Basic Instinct 2 (2006), Killing Me Softly (2002), the Fifty Shades trilogy (2015–2018), The Boy Next Door (2015), and Deep Water (2022). Of those, only Fifty Shades was a commercial success—and even that was a cultural phenomenon built on the novel’s notoriety rather than the film’s quality.

What killed the genre?

The internet. Pornography became freely accessible. The “erotic” component of the erotic thriller was no longer a draw it was a barrier. Why pay £15 for a watered-down sex scene when you can watch anything for free?

Remember going to the Plaza Cinema, Lower Regent Steet in early 1988 to buy tickets I was only 14 and my friends wanted to see it, it was my first 18, it of course wasn’t the film I was expecting and for months afterwards nervously looked at a saucepan boiling on the hob (the film was Fatal Attraction) For a teenager growing up in the 80s didn’t have the easy access to porn, it was the top shelf magazines you nervously brought in newsagents that you didn’t go to regularly, hiding it beneath other magazines.

The VHS/DVD market collapsed. The erotic thriller thrived on home video, where a film could be a flop in cinemas but profitable on rental. Streaming doesn’t work the same way there’s no shelf space to fill, no late-night impulse rentals.

The Me:Too movement. The industry’s attitude towards sex on screen changed. The “male gaze” was interrogated. Films that once felt titillating now felt exploitative.

The rise of prestige TV. Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Sharp Objects, the kind of adult, psychological drama that used to be an erotic thriller is now a limited series on HBO or Netflix.

The result: the genre has been pushed to streaming and straight-to-video. Deep Water went to Hulu. Killing Me Softly went straight to video in the US. The erotic thriller didn’t die, it was displaced.

While with The Housemaid had very strong legs taking 7.3x its opening (£31,721,141) Verity will likely be much more front-loaded as word of mouth is far softer and The Other Mommy is likely to have an impact opening this weekend as they are both targetting the same female audience.

• 2. Resident Evil £1,337,562 – £11,239,088

Dropped 40.12% in its third weekend.

£372k 27.8% (-41% £631k) Fri; £557k 41.6% (-39% £910k) Sat; £409k 30.6% (-41% £692k) Sun

479^th biggest third weekend between The Favourite and Mission: Impossible II (close to Planet of the Apes, What Lies Beneath, I, Robot and The Others) and 764^th biggest inflated third weekend between The Impossible and The Lion King 3D (close to 12 Monkeys, X-Men: Apocalypse, Split and Solo: A Star Wars Story).

Holding similar to Zach Cregger’s Weapons dropped 26.3% £1,147,166 and £8,668,189 74.8% of £11,231,965.

Its 2026’s third-biggest horror film ahead of Scary Movie (£9.40m) and behind only Backrooms (£13.15m) and Obsession (£20.03m). Will face competition from The Other Mommy this week.

18^th biggest film of 2026 between Backrooms and Disclosure Day (close to Hoppers, Moana, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and Scream 7).

All of the other Resident Evil films were very front-loaded lasting only a couple of weeks in cinemas and the reboot has outgrossed all of them after three weeks.

After the strong performance of Resident Evil Sony Pictures will surely be trying to get Zach Cregger to change his mind over making only one film as they will be wanting a sequel asap.

Sony have had an excellent 2026 so far with Sony Pictures films taking £135m+ and MGM taking. £60m+ and still have The Social Reckoning and Jumanji: Open World still to open. Sony Pictures will surely be third after Disney and Universal of course almost half coming from Spider-Man Brand New Day.

• 3. Heart Of The Beast £1,141,551 – £4,068,962

Dropped 44.8% in its second weekend (26% without previews)

£271k 23.8% (-28% £375k) Fri; £488k 42.8% (-23.3% £636k) Sat; £382k 33.5% (-37.3% £609k) Sun.

1,001^st biggest second weekend between Crazy Rich Asians and Baywatch (close to Crocodile Dundee, John Wick: Chapter Two, Edward Scissorhands and Shaun of the Dead) and 1,559^th biggest inflated second weekend between Jojo Rabbit and Dead Again (close to The Legend of Zorro, Snakes on a Plane, Insidious: The Last Key and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island).

33^rd biggest second weekend over the last 52 weeks between Scream 7 and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (close to The Sheep Detectives, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Pressure and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2).

Heart of the Beast has already overtaken many of Brad Pitt films including The Mexican (£3.74m), Babylon (£3.93m) and Spy Game (£4.02m).

There have been many “man and his dog” survival films over the years including I Am Legend, The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Alpha, and Dog as cinemagoers like films about the relationship between man and dog as seen by the huge success of 2008’s Marley & Me (spoiler the dog dies).

While Brad Pitt starred in F1 and Bullet Train, Heart of the Beast is a much different film similar to 2022’s Channing Tatum Dog, 2017’s The Mountain Between Us, 2022’s Beast and 2026’s Send Help. Took similar to the second weekend of 2019’s Ad Astra dropped 43.3% £1,284,924/£1,425,518 and £4,512,420 74.2% of £6,079,432.

12 years ago, Brad Pitt starred in David Ayer’s Fury dropped 53.7% £1,246,990 and £5,609,870 of £8,135,654. . More recently directed genre action films The Beekeeper and A Working Man.

Heart of the Beast is the first film starring Brad Pitt since 2025’s F1 dropped 56.5% £3,074,421 and £12,901,088 57.8% of £22,335,543. He next stars in the standalone sequel and spin-off to 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth directed by David Fincher and written by Quentin Tarantino opening in November.

• 4. Digger £1,089,897 – NE

Took £342k 31.38% Friday; £412k 37.80% Saturday; £336k 30.83% Sunday.

1,712^th biggest opening between Layer Cake and Vampires Suck (close to Déjà Vu, Ex Machina, Get Shorty and Coyote Vs. Acme) and 2,360^th biggest inflated opening between Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun and Family Business (close to Wall Street, O’ Brother, Where Art Thou, The Nice Guys and From Dusk Till Dawn).

58^th biggest opening over the last 52 weeks between The Black Phone 2 and Reminders Of Him (close to Obsession, Deliver Me From Nowhere, The Dog Stars and Bugonia).

27^th biggest Tom Cruise opening between Eyes Wide Shut and Born on the Fourth of July (close to American Made, Rock of Ages, Cocktail and A Few Good Men) and 37^th biggest inflated (out of 39 films) between American Made and Lions For Lambs (close to The Color of Money, Far and Away, Rock of Ages and Magnolia).

Opened in 654 cinemas 149^th widest opening similar to Minions & Monsters, I Swear, Yesterday and Stan and Ollie); 326^th 600+ cinema opening since 2015’s Jurassic World.

UK opening was 13.62% of US opening similar to The Dog Stars, The Invite, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Interview with the Vampire,

Opening performance. Digger’s opening could have been worse. IMAX and premium large-format screens inflated the result: although they probably accounted for no more than 30% of ticket sales combined, that contribution was enough to push the film past £1 million, that said in the US IMAX/Vista Vision took almost 50% of its BO.

The central problem: confused positioning. When a film flops, the post-mortem begins, but the explanations for Digger did not go far enough. Its biggest problem was not the negative buzz; it was that an art-house film had been marketed as mainstream entertainment. The trailers gave audiences little sense of what the film was about, prompting some viewers to speculate that it was a musical. The campaign tried to be too clever and instead created confusion.

Iñárritu’s track record. Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s earlier films—including 2001’s Amores perros, 2003’s 21 Grams, 2006’s Babel, 2014’s Birdman and even 2015’s The Revenant—were not conventional mainstream releases. The Revenant reached a broader audience because of strong reviews, awards attention and Leonardo DiCaprio’s appeal. DiCaprio had also built a career across a wide range of films, including Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, Inception, Django Unchained, The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street. Audiences therefore had a clearer sense of what to expect from him in The Revenant.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s other films had far more limited release

2004’s 21 Grams opened £582,951 from 127 screens taking £2,301,690

2007’s Babel opened £592,387 from 130 screens taking £2,172,420

2015’s Birdman opened £1,524,667 259 screens taking £5,044,674

Creative ambition versus commercial reality. Tom Cruise has described Amores perros as one of his favourite films, so his desire to work with Alejandro G. Iñárritu is understandable. However, greenlighting Digger at a budget similar to the $130 million spent on One Battle After Another was commercially reckless: the film never had a realistic chance of recouping that investment.

The limits of Cruise’s action-star image. Audiences were being asked to follow Cruise directly from Maverick and Ethan Hunt to Digger—a shift comparable to his move from Ethan Hunt to Stacee Jaxx in 2012. Les Grossman worked in Tropic Thunder because the role was a cameo and Cruise was still appearing in a broader range of films, including Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, The Last Samurai, Collateral and War of the Worlds, between two Mission: Impossible instalments.

A film intended to endure. Cruise explained his approach in an interview: “When I am making [movies], I’m not going, ‘Opening weekend!’ I feel very much like we’re going to make something that is a lasting piece of cinema.” Cruise and Iñárritu cited Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, which they described as a “masterpiece” that “everybody killed” on its original cinema release before it came to be regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made.

The modern theatrical reality. “They transcend… you just hope you can make a film that can last,” Cruise said. “So many things happen when you open a movie. I was fortunate to release movies in the ’80s and ’90s, when movies would stay in the cinema for a year. With ‘Rain Man’ and ‘Born on the Fourth of July,’ these movies would just play and play for a year. How can I make a film that can translate and last and evolve? And I feel that way… that is ‘Digger,’ it’s one of those movies.” That model belonged to cinema more than 30 years ago, not to the past decade. Today, exhibitors can remove underperforming films within a week. Digger is therefore likely to lose screenings in its second weekend and disappear from cinemas by its third week.

The Hudsucker Proxy worked (for those who liked it) because its meta-textual playfulness was the whole point, it was a fairy tale, a fable, a cartoon. Don’t Look Up worked (for those who liked it) because its anger was direct and unmediated.

Digger tried to be both. It wanted the political urgency of Don’t Look Up and the meta-textual cleverness of The Hudsucker Proxy.

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The Key Distinction: Cruise vs. DiCaprio

Tom Cruise	Leonardo DiCaprio
Action star.	Character actor.
Known for Ethan Hunt and Maverick.	Known for a wide mix of roles.
Fans want the action brand.	Fans trust the actor’s choices.
Digger was a betrayal of the brand.	The Revenant was a continuation of the brand.

DiCaprio’s audience followed him anywhere. Cruise’s audience follows him to Mission: Impossible and Top Gun—and nowhere else.

The Tropic Thunder Exception

The Les Grossman cameo worked because:

• It was short—a few minutes, not two hours.
• It was funny—a satire of Hollywood executives, not a political statement.
• It was part of a Tom Cruise era where he was still mixing blockbusters with riskier fare.

The Trump/Les Grossman Parallel

Digger Rockwell is described as “the most powerful and hated man in the world,” a billionaire oil tycoon convinced he is the only man capable of saving humanity. The parallels to Donald Trump are unmistakable, and deliberate. But there is also a clear line back to Cruise’s most beloved comedic role: Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder. Digger is the fusion of the two: the ego of Trump, the vulgarity of Grossman, and the catastrophic incompetence of both. It is Trump + Grossman, and it is terrifying.

The trailer opens with the line: “With great power comes great deniability.” It is a direct jab at the Trumpian habit of avoiding responsibility while claiming credit. Multiple outlets have compared the film to Dr. Strangelove for the climate crisis age; a satire of the men who believe they are above consequences. One critic noted the subtext is barely hidden: “Overheard at the Trump White House: Is this fucking play about us?”

The damaging twist. Digger’s biggest problem is its twist. To avoid spoilers, I will say only that once details became known, they discouraged potential viewers. That reaction compounded the film’s other major obstacle: too few people were interested in seeing it in the first place.

The twist wasn’t random. It was Iñárritu’s way of asking a bleak question: What happens when a catastrophe becomes something people watch and turn into entertainment?

The play Fossil Fools is a satire of a disaster that already happened. The characters performing it are living in the aftermath. The final scene shows the audience leaving the theatre to put on gas masks and step into a flooded, dystopian world, the disaster never went away, they just made a comedy about it.

It’s a meta-commentary on how we process tragedy: we turn it into content, we laugh at the villains, and we move on without fixing anything.

Digger might have been better if it had just been a straightforward Trump satire. If Tom Cruise had played a Trump-like billionaire, and the film had committed to that, it would have been provocative. It would have made people angry. It would have started conversations.

Instead, it was a film about whether it’s okay to make a film about a Trump-like billionaire. And that is not a satire, that’s an apology.

It wasn’t brave. It was defensive. It was the Dallas “it was all a dream” cop-out dressed up as intellectual ambition. And audiences saw right through it.

By making it a play-within-a-film, Iñárritu avoided the trap of making a direct Trump satire. But he also avoided making a direct point, it was a way to make a Trump film without making a Trump film, a defensive manoeuvre dressed up as intellectual ambition.

It Felt Like a Lecture About Itself: The film constantly cuts backstage to argue about whether the play is too satirical, whether it’s disrespectful to history, and what art is supposed to do. As one critic wrote, “turning the movie into a debate about itself ends up detracting from whatever power the story of the ‘play’ could have had”. It becomes an intellectual exercise that keeps explaining its own thesis rather than letting you feel it.

The Logic Doesn’t Hold: The film never explains how this impossibly elaborate production is being staged in a post-apocalyptic future with Category 6 hurricanes and robot cops. It asks you to accept an absurd premise but then doesn’t commit to the surrealism, it stops to explain the absurdity, which kills the magic.

It Alienated Both Camps: Audiences who wanted a straightforward Tom Cruise movie felt tricked. Critics who appreciated the ambition found the execution bloated and self-indulgent. As Owen Gleiberman wrote in Variety, the film is “so full of itself, so top-heavy with importance”

Cruise’s narrowing screen identity. In 2008, Tom Cruise could experiment because audiences were willing to experiment with him. By 2026, he had become trapped in his action-star persona—not because viewers did not want to see him act, but because they did not want to risk seeing him fail outside that familiar image.

Discovery replaced by certainty. Cinema was once a place of discovery; now, audiences increasingly seek certainty. For Tom Cruise, that certainty means watching him run rather than watching him stretch as an actor.

The UK box-office record. Since 1986, Cruise’s 39 films have earned almost £500 million at the UK box office, or roughly £800 million after inflation. Before Top Gun: Maverick took £83.6m, his biggest UK release was 2005’s War of the Worlds, a record that shows how firmly he has become the “last action hero” over the past 20 years.

Rejection before release. Audiences rejected Digger before the reviews, before the twist and before most people had seen it. The trailer left them unsure what the film was and made clear that it was not the Tom Cruise vehicle they expected.

A marketing failure. Bad buzz did not kill the film; bad marketing did. Audiences had largely made their decision before critics entered the conversation.

The uncertainty of filmmaking. William Goldman famously wrote: “Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out, it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.”

Warner Bros.’ uneven slate. Warner Bros. enjoyed major success last year with a varied slate, but nearly all of its UK releases have struggled this year apart from Wuthering Heights. The films were also less promising: The Bride, Supergirl and Lee Cronin’s The Mummy attracted substantial negative buzz before release; Practical Magic 2 and Mortal Kombat II followed originals that were not major hits; and The End of Oak Street went through several titles and release dates.

The case for taking risks. Other studios reduce uncertainty by building slates around intellectual property, sequels and nostalgia. Warner Bros. deserves credit for taking a chance on Digger and continuing to back original work. That commitment is not without contradiction, however: the studio also wrote off Coyote vs. Acme and shut down production of Batgirl. Earlier this year, Warner Bros. said, “We believe the business is better served with studios taking bold swings on originals.”

From Netflix to Warner Bros. According to Deadline, Digger began development at Netflix under the title Blah, Blah, Blah, with Leonardo DiCaprio attached. After DiCaprio chose to star in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, which had a similar premise, Netflix dropped the project and Warner Bros. acquired it.

At the time, Warner Bros., led by Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, was aggressively acquiring original, filmmaker-driven projects, including Sinners (Ryan Coogler), Wuthering Heights (Emerald Fennell), Mickey 17 (Bong Joon Ho), Weapons (Zach Cregger), The Bride! (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson).

The studio didn’t necessarily expect these films to become major box-office hits. Instead, following the Christopher Nolan debacle, it wanted to establish itself as Hollywood’s leading filmmaker-friendly, auteur-driven studio.

After Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures became the only major studio consistently willing to take risks on original films, supported by multiyear, multibillion-dollar output deals with Netflix and Disney.

Sinners and Weapons were hugely successful while One Battle After Another became Paul Thomas Anderson biggest film and won Warner Bros its first Best Picture Oscar for 14 years. While Warner Bros.’ 2026 slate so far hasn’t been as successful as other studios’, it felt it was on the right path,

Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy had put together a strong slate of films for the next few years. With more similar original films, it looked like a studio that believes in its own future. That trusts its filmmakers. That understands that the only thing that lasts is the work itself.

It felt similar at 20th Century Fox in 2018, but then, out of the blue, Skydance announced plans to buy Warner Bros. in September 2025, which was completed this week. Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy left Warner Bros. last week, saying they had left 39 films. The question is: how many of these will still be made and released? Warner Bros. announced a few months ago that it would make Sean Penn’s January 6th film, This will surely be the first of many Skydance will cancel this week.

Digger will surely drop about 60% in its second weekend and barely last two weeks in the top 10. Tom Cruise’s next film is Days of Thunder 2 starring Anne Hathaway set for release in June 2028, after her recent box office success will she get top billing. Days of Thunder 2 isn’t a sure thing as the original film in 1990 wasn’t a huge box office hit taking $82.67m in the US, $157.92m worldwide including UK £3,430,086/£9,777,576. It doesn’t have the nostalgia factor Top Gun has had since it opened.

Its surely being made as the original was a favourite of Tom Cruise and Paramount are eager for him to make Top Gun 3 afterwards. If Tom Cruise did make Top Gun 3 afterwards, he would be about 68 by the time its released, Harrison Ford was 80when he starred in the last Indiana Jones film, but he was not flying faster than the speed of sound.

Bottom line

Tom Cruise was a risk taker up to about 10 years ago, since then he has made 6 sequels, one remake and two original films both flopped. Tom Cruise has type cast himself as the last action hero, and his fans can only see him in action films anymore. Had Tom Cruise had a supporting role in Digger and the budget been a fraction of its $130m, it wouldn’t have been sold as a Tom Cruise film but a Alejandro G. Iñárritu film, it wouldn’t have had the polarised reactions as audiences would have known exactly what they were getting.

Digger wasn’t a noble failure, it was a predictable one that goes back to when Dicaprio left it when it was set up at Netflix and choose similar themed Don’t Look Up, was then acquired by Warner Bros a studio desperate to prove it was still the “home of auteurs” starring an actor desperate to prove he was more than an action star, directed by a filmmaker who had been rejected by Netflix and DiCaprio, and sold to an audience that had no idea what it was. So much so when some saw the trailer, they thought it was a musical or a Les Grossman film.

(I’ve gone deep in my analysis for Digger as it will only last one week in the top 5 and be out of the top 10 within 2 weeks).

• 5. Sense And Sensibility £975,931 – £5,900,407

Dropped 36.5% in its second weekend.

£276k 28.3% (-39.3% £455k) Fri; £367k 37.6% (-32.2% £541k) Sat; £333k 34.1% (-38.3% £540k) Sun.

1,190^th biggest second weekend between Three Kings and Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (close to The Talented Mr. Ripley, Hidden Figures, Fisherman’s Friends and The Guernsey Literary and Potato) and 1,767^th biggest inflated second weekend Around the World in 80 Days and Robocop (1988) (close to Out of Sight, Widows, Jane Eyre and The Bridges Of Madison County).

37^th biggest second weekend over the last 52 weeks between Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and The End Of Oak Street (close to Heart Of The Beast, Pressure, Regretting You and Masters Of The Universe).

This new version was targetting the same Gen Z audience who saw Wuthering Heights and Little Women, but its performing similar to the recent Emma adaptation that was affected with cinemas closing due to COVID in March 2020,

Remaking the classics feels similar to what Disney is doing with its live-action reimagining’s, bringing beloved stories to the next generation. The problem, of course, is that those who lived through the previous incarnations see these as sacrilege. But as with the recent Star Wars films, Disney would say they are not for the children who saw the originals or the prequels, they are for their grandchildren. These adaptations are of classic novels, after all.

Second weekends

Wuthering Heights dropped 49.4% £3,878,031 and £16,282,903 (Friday £1.3m 33.5%; Saturday   £1.46m 37.6%; Sunday £1.11m 28.8%) of £25,224,499.

After the sexualised Wuthering Heights maybe GenZ were turned off with this vanilla version of Sense And Sensibility as if your going to remake a classic it needs to be different from the version people have grown up with, this was the case with the two Little Women adaptations.

2019’s Little Women dropped 27.4% £2,599,137/£2,883,530 and £9,093,471 42.7% of £21,283,939/£23,612,791

2020’s Emma 29.3% £1,156,256/£1,308,137 and £4,571,310 61.3% of £7,455,943/£8,435,325 (COVID affected)

2005’s Pride And Prejudice dropped 23.5% £1,934,083/£3,289,173and £6,406,188 44% of £14,562,448/£24,765,437

1996’s Sense and Sensibility up 1.9% £641,529/£1,262,567 and £1,828,908 13.4% of £13,605,627/£26,776,676

1995’s Little Women dropped 16.2% £354,582/£816,150 and £1,181,295 37% of £3,143,960/£7,236,529

Daisy Edgar-Jones recently starred in the 2022 adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing dropped 38.7% £855,842/£891,456 and £3,767,061 46.4% of £8,115,231 and 2024’s Twisters but is best known for playing Marianne Sheridan in the lockdown BBC hit Normal People, next stars in Netflix’s Here Comes the Flood alongside Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson released next year directed by Fernando Meirelles.

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2026 BO is currently up 21% from 2025.

The weekend’s top 10 box office took £10,329,785 down 21% from last weekend’s £13,073,320: 1,289,611 admissions, down 21% from 1,632,125 admissions.

36^th biggest weekend of the last 52 weeks between 11 September 2026 #1 Practical Magic 2  £2,798,771 (25.58%) and 20 February 2026 #1 Wuthering Heights £3,878,031 (38.08%)    

139^th biggest since cinemas reopened out of 307 weeks between 19 May 2023 #1 Fast X £5,895,674 (57.01%) and 30 July 2021 #1 The Suicide Squad              £3,252,028 (31.66%)   

655^th biggest top 10 of the last 25 years (out of 1,277) between 19 May 2017 #1 King Arthur: Legend of the Sword £2,501,993 (24.20%) and 27 June 2003 #1 Bruce Almighty £7,260,467 (70.29%) and 1.018^th biggest inflated between 08 November 2019 #1 Joker £1,668,466 (19.55%) and 28 September 2012 #1 Looper £2,427,994 (31.77%)

The top 3 took £5,875,723 (56.9%) of the top 10; Verity 32.9% (£3,396,610); Resident Evil 12.95% (£1,337,562); Heart Of The Beast 15.8% (£2,070,025)

681^st biggest percentage share #1 (32.88%) between 28 January 2011 #1 Tangled £5,106,612 (32.89%) and 16 September 2011 #1 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy £2,814,860 (32.80%)       

841^st biggest admissions (424,046) between 30 July 2004 #1 King Arthur £1,908,084 (424,963) and 30 January 2004 #1 Scary Movie 3 £1,894,077 (421,843)         

Up 13.49% from 2025; (£9,102,060); Taylor Swift: Party Of A Showgirl (£3,471,544); The Smashing Machine (£863,078); Him (£275,705); Avatar: The Way Of Water (Re: 2025) (£254,394); Dora: Magic Mermaid Adventures (£107,009); GoldenEye (30th Anniversary) (£99,124); #1 Taylor Swift: Party Of A Showgirl £3,471,544 658 screens 1st week (38.14% of top 10)

Up 17.88% from 2024; (£8,762,914); Joker: Folie A Deux (£5,674,029); A Different Man (£88,9470; Disney Junior Cinema Club 2024 (£53,690); Young Frankenstein (50th Anniversary) (£21,622); #1 Joker: Folie A Deux £5,674,029 1st week 72 screens (64.75% of top 10).

Up 87.1% from 2023; (£5,519,804); The Exorcist: Believer (£1,677,878); The Great Escaper (£598,135); Blackberry (£117,263); #1 The Exorcist: Believer £1,677,878 1st week 554 screens (30.4% of top 10).

Up 49.9% 2022 (£6,887,976); The Woman King (£1,308,685); Amsterdam (£632,722); The Lost King (£368,753); Nothing Compares (£31,628); Vengeance (£29,052); Bram Stoker’s Dracula (30th Anniversary 4K Restoration) (£13,991); #1 Smile £1,715,678 2nd week 521 screens down 8% (24.91% of top 10)

Down 43.9% 2021 (£18,399,057); The Addams Family 2 (£2,009,785); #1 No Time To Die £15,235,947 2nd week (82.8% of top 10)

Up 292.2% 2020; (£2,633,473); Cats & Dogs: Paws Unite! (£456,532); The Elfkins (£131,374); On the Rocks (£93,821); David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (£92,052); #1 Tenet £628,247 6th week down 3% 542 screens (23.4% of top 10)

Down 54.1% 2019; (£18,790,335); Joker (£12,555,328); Judy (£2,086,969); Vampirina: Fang-Tastic Party (£74,628); #1 Joker £12,555,328 1st week 666 screens (66.8% of top 10).

Down 47.2% 2018: (£19,552,430); Venom (£8,031,342); Johnny English Strikes Again (£4,117,692); A Star is Born (£4,100,196); Aida – Met Opera 2018 (£302,179); Blindspotting (£28,231); #1 Venom £8,031,342 1st week 556 screens (41.1%)

Down 9.2% 2017: (£11,370,381); Blade Runner 2049 (£6,071,625); The Mountain Between Us (£777,646); Norma – Met Opera 2017 (£224,794); The Glass Castle (£49,425); #1 Blade Runner 2049 £6,071,625 1st week 634 screens (54.4% of the top 10)

Down 29.2% 2016: (£14,587,631); The Girl on the Train (£6,957,945); War on Everyone (£187,564); Tristan und Isolde – Met Opera 2016 (£178,283); My Scientology Movie (£106,720); Blood Father (£68,808); #1 The Girl on the Train £6,957,945 1st week 612 screens (47.7% of the top 10)

Down 8.6% 2015; (£11,352,036); The Martian (£6,531,734); The Intern (£758,713); Macbeth (£746,642); Il Trovatore – Met Opera 2015 (£234,387); Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ (£151,087); #1 The Martian £6,531,734 1st week 582 screens (57.5% of top 10)

Down 3.6% 2014: (£10,716,576); Gone Girl (£4,109,628); Dracula Untold (£1,713,283); Bang Bang (£602,193); Dolphin Tale 2 (£536,766); Life After Beth (£53,427); #1 Gone Girl £4,109,628 1st week 549 screens (33% drop (38.3% of top 10)

Up 74.4% 2013: (£5,923,584); Sunshine on Leith (£770,239); How I Live Now (£232,400); Thanks for Sharing (£188,906); The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (£38,432); The to do List (£13,512); #1 Prisoners £1,107,641 2nd week 437 screens 19% drop (18.7% of top 10)

Down 22.8% 2012: (£13,375,585); Taken 2 (£7,378,048); Sinister (£1,435,722); The Perks of Being a Wallflower (£827,983); Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007 (£13,391); Sparkle (£15,911); #1 Taken 2 £7,378,048 1st week 506 screens (55.1% of top 10)

Down 10.3% 2011; (£11,517,788); Johnny English Reborn (£4,965,000); The Lion King 3D (£2,746,763); Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (£495,734); Midnight in Paris (£495,709); Tyrannosaur (£81,790); #1 Johnny English Reborn £4,965,000 1st week 524 screens (43.1% of top 10)

Up 55.5% 2010: (£6,639,950); Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (£1,784,309); Life As We Know It (£985,558); The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud (£643,368); Mr Nice (£239,844); #1 Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps £1,784,309 1st week 444 screens (26.8% of top 10)

Up 29.5% 2009; (£7,977,997); The Invention of Lying (£1,735,326); Toy Story 3D (£1,395,209); Pandorum (£346,097); #1 Fame £1,786,358 2nd week 460 screens (22.4% of top 10)

Up 64.7% 2008; (£6,269,596); How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (£1,154,607); Brideshead Revisited (£375,270); Fly Me to the Moon 3-D (£311,791); 88 Minutes (£92,761); #1 How to Lose Friends and Alienate People £1,154,607 1st week 451 screens (18.4% of top 10)

Up 81.6% 2007: (£5,687,298); The Heartbreak Kid (£1,236,288); The Kingdom (£919,537); Control (£252,426); And When Did You Last See Your Father (£133,347); Daywatch (£95,574); #1 The Heartbreak Kid £1,236,288 1st week 409 screens (21.7% of top 10)

Up 1.1% 2006; (£10,215,688); The Devil Wears Prada (£3,267,580); The Departed (£2,298,313); Accepted (£349,897); #1 The Devil Wears Prada £3,267,580 1st week 447 screens (31.9% of top 10)

Up 93.7% 2005: (£5,332,334); Serenity (£958,816); Oliver Twist (£692,494); Kinky Boots (£623,163); Night Watch (£271,857); Tara Road (£73,150); #1 Serenity £958,816 1st week 355 screens (18% of top 10)

Up 44% 2004; (£7,170,652); Saw (£1,239,813); Layer Cake (£1,090,561); Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (£628,808); Man About Dog (£134,924); The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (£125,748); De-Lovely (£117,789); Dead Man’s Shoes (£44,361); #1 Wimbledon £1,499,011 2nd week 446 screens 12% drop (20.9% of top 10)

Up 21% 2003 (£8,536,497); Bad Boys 2 (£3,175,258); Down with Love (£599,047); Bright Young Things (£327,293); Finding Nemo (platform) (£152,793); #1 Bad Boys 2 £3,175,258 1st week 383 screens (37.2% of top 10)

Up 30.6% from 2002: (£7,906,650); Lilo & Stitch (£1,516,249); My Little Eye (£893,633); Boat Trip (£425,325); One Hour Photo (£420,500); Sweet Sixteen (£144,388); #1 Lilo & Stitch £1,516,249 1st week 280 screens (19.1% of top 10)

Up 89% from 2001 (£5,465,628); Amelie (£559,747); Driven (£144,591); Original Sin (£96,622); #1 Moulin Rouge £1,072,657 5th week #1 3rd week 397 screens 20% drop (19.6%

Next week: 2025 (£6,139,786); Tron: Ares (£1,790,651); I Swear (£1,185,756); Good Boy (£230,214); Corpse Bride (20th Anniversary) (£129,218); Twilight (10th Anniversary) (£97,010); #1 Tron: Ares £1,790,651 1^st week 609 screens (29.16% of top 10).

2026 UK Box office

September 2026 was up 3% from 2025 and the year to date is still 21% ahead of 2025 as its been since August.

September box office took £73.3m compared to £71.2m from last year. Annual box office till then end of September was £976.6m compared to £806.4m in 2025.

Top September films were.

1. Resident Evil £9.9m
2. Practical Magic 2 £7.5m
3. Pressure £6.2m
4. The Odyssey £5.7m
5. Avengers Endgame: Encore £5.2m
6. Spider-Man: Brand New Day £4.6m               
7. Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger £4m
8. Heart Of The Beast £2.9m
9. Sense And Sensibility £2.7m
10. Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom £2.7m

There are a lot of films opening between now and mid- November but its hard to see any big break out hits until The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping, Focker-In-Law, Avengers: Doomsday, Dune: Part Three and Jumanji: Open World open over the last 6 weeks of the year.

US Box Office

• Verity – MGM

Opened $32.03m; received poor reviews (34% Rotten Tomatoes) and C+ CinemaScore.

Took $4.5m from Thursday previews; Reminders of Him $1.9m; Regretting You $1m; It Ends With Us $7m; Fifty Shades of Grey $8.6m; Don’t Worry Darling $3.1m

623^rd biggest opening between Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (close to Wuthering Heights, Wedding Crashers, Bad Teacher and Liar Liar).

Took 28% from PLFs

Anne Hathaway’s third #1 film this year after The Odyssey and The Devil Wears Prada 2.

The End of Oak Street opened $21.01m taking $54.18m and $121.48m WW and The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened $76.74m taking $220.55m and $693.2m worldwide.

The fourth Colleen Hoover adaptation after

2026’s Reminders of Him opened $17.97m taking $48.55m and $89.27m worldwide

2025’s Regretting You opened $13.68m, taking $48.85m and $90.45m worldwide

2024’s It Ends with Us opened $50.01m, taking $148.51m and $351.44m worldwide

Verity has been compared to The Housemaid (opened $19.01m taking $126.43m and $400.48m worldwide) but The Housemaid had very strong legs due to very positive word of mouth as 2014’s Gone Girl (opening $37.51m taking $167.75m and $370.89m worldwide) Verity will likely drop off much quicker like so many 90s erotic thrillers, that said as with The End of Oak Street Anne Hathway’s performance saw it have far better legs than expected and many have said Anne Hathway does similar with Verity.

Verity was expected to open with $30m-$35m; Verity follows MGM/Amazon’s Master of the Universe flopping in the summer taking only $113m worldwide and Project Hail Mary $684m worldwide and still has I Play Rocky, film about the making of the 1976’s Rocky and How to Rob a Bank.

After starring in five films in 2026 (Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street and Verity) she stars in next Alone At Dawnn and Days of Thunder 2 in 2028 with Princess Diaries 3 also expected in 2028 as it would be the 25^th anniversary of the original film and Disney like making legacy sequel 20-25 years later as they will play to both the fans who watched the original and then the next generation as The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Freakier Friday.

After the success of 2024’s It Ends with Us studios have been quick to adapt other Colleen Hoover novels this is similar to a decade ago when there were many John Green adaptations (The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns and Let It Snow) and Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, The Longest Ride, Dear John, Safe Haven, The Lucky Ones, Nights in Rodanthe and A Walk to Remember and Message in a Bottle).

Colleen Hoover has been authoring novels since 2012, writing 26 novels and selling 35m copies, but it was only in 2020 that she became a massive success after she became the obsession of BookTok, a TikTok subset that’s devoted to reading.

Sony has wanted to make the sequel to It Ends with Us, It Starts With Us, but the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, ever since the film opened, has delayed any potential sequel until after the court case, now it’s over they could announce the sequel soon.

Over the years that followed, Netflix became the home of these female-targeted films but then came the huge success of The Housemaid early this year.

2025’s The Housemaid opened $19.01m taking $126.43m and $400.48m worldwide

2022’s Don’t Worry Darling opened $19.35m, taking $45.3m and $87.6m worldwide

2022’s Where the Crawdads Sing opened $17.25m, taking $90.23m and $144.35m worldwide

While in 2014 Gone Girl opened $37.51m taking $167.76m and $370.89m worldwide and in 2016 The Girl On the Train opened $24.53m taking $75.39m and $173.18m worldwide.

Regretting You opened internationally with $10m from 43 territories; UK $1.75m; Germany $1.65m; Australia $1.4m; Mexico $1.3m; Brazil $745k.

Reminders of Him opened $10m internationally from 51 territories and $28.2m worldwide; Germany $2.5m; UK $1.5m; Australia $1.3m

It Ends With Us opened $30m from 32 territories and $80m worldwide $5.7m; Australia $4.7m; Brazil $3.4m; Mexico $2.5m; Holland $1m; Sweden $1m.

Opened $23.6m internationally from 43 territories UK $4.5m; Brazil $3.8m; Australia $3.1m;

Hard to compare with The Housemaid as it had a staggered international opening in December/January.

• Avengers: Endgame Encore – Disney

Dropped 82.9% in its second weekend $4.47m and $36.28.

The 38 MCU films have taken $35bn worldwide and Avengers: Endgame lifetime BO id now $2.885bn, behind Avatar ‘s $2.92B and ahead of Spider-Man: Brand New Day ‘s $2.495bn.

Took 14.4m internationally $18.8m total and $126m worldwide total; Avengers Endgame: Encore has made Avengers Endgame the highest-grossing movie ever around the world topping Avatar with $2.9255bn.

• Forgotten Island – Universal Pictures

Dropped 44.6% in its second weekend $7.2m and $23.63m

Over the last decade September has been a lucrative time to release original animated films away from the crowded summer or Thanksgiving period with films including Hotel Transylvania, Abominable, Cloudy With a Chance With Meatballs and The Wild Robot. So why did Forgotten Island struggle to find an an audience after having a strong trailer and buzz for months?

It has a staggered international release opening in Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand las weekend and another 31 territories this weekend and then more over the coming weeks, opening in the UK I three weeks’ time ahead of half-term.

Took $4.8m internationally from 46 territories and $38.5m worldwide.

• Digger – Warner Bros

Opened $8m; received mixed reviews (51% Rotten Tomatoes) and C+ CinemaScore.

Took $1.2m from Thursday previews; One Battle After Another $3.1m.

Over the weeks before opening its opening expectations dropped from $20m+ to between $12m-$15m

The lowest Tom Cruise opening since 2007’s Lions for Lambs at $6.7m taking $15m and $64.81m worldwide; he made the film while he was co-head of United Artists; Lion For Lambs was his first film.  

IMAX/Vista Vision screens took almost 50% of its opening, so its opening was worst than Lion For Lambs as they inflated its opening.

Comparisons were made with films including 1992’s Bob Roberts, Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 The Informant and 1994’s The Hudsucker Proxy; none of them found mainstream audiences so why did anyone think Digger was going to even with Tom Cruise?

Tom Cruise 53 films have taken $14bn worldwide over the last 45 years, but he has struggled with original films over the last 22 years 2013’s Oblivion opening $37.05m taking $89.1m and $286.16m was his biggest original film since 2005’s War of the World remake opening $64.87m taking $234.28m and $603.87m worldwide. Have to go back to Minority Report, The Last Samurai and Collateral over 20 years ago.

When his tried something different like Lions For Lambs Valkyrie, Rock of Ages, Jack Reacher, Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy and American Made, he generates massive media coverage, but his fans don’t go to see them in the cinema. Why even Tom Cruise kept making Mission Impossible films and Paramount greenlit Days of Thunder as they did Jack Reacher in the hope, he makes Top Gun 3 afterwards.

When it was announced Tom Cruise would star in the Alejandro G. Iñárritu film, it was expected that he would as Leonardo DiCaprio finally won Best Actor Oscar for The Revenant, Tom Cruise will finally win a Best Actor Oscar after being previously nominated four times. He could still get a Best Actor nomination as while its had very polarised reviews most have said Tom Cruise performance is Oscar worthily, and if his role was a supporting one, he would be favourite to win.

Digger ‘s social media across Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok and YouTube was 289.5m followers before opening,66% less than that of Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning (847.2m) and 28% behind Top Gun: Maverick ‘s (404m). This was of course expected.

Films like Digger highlight why Netflix have been very selective up to now with the films they give theatrical releases as being original films locking them into 45-day windows if they struggle to find an audience will harm their streaming release.

The reaction to Digger has been similar to 2017’s Mother! Directed by Darren Aronofsky starring Jennifer Lawrence opened $7.53m taking $17.8m and $44.51m worldwide, it split critics and audiences between calling it a masterpiece or a pretentious mess. They share the same DNA: they are aggressively confrontational art films masquerading as mainstream star vehicles, with a leading actor wanting to try something different but its fanbase not interested.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu previous films

2001’s Amores perros opened on a limited release to a maximum of 187 screens taking $5.4m and $20.9m worldwide

2003’s 21 Grams opened $1.22m (after 6 weeks on platform) taking $44.13m and $60.42m worldwide

2006’s Babel opened $5.55m (after 2 weeks on platform) taking $34.3m and $135.33m worldwide

2014’s Birdman opened on staggered platform release so impossible to make direct comparison as it didn’t get to its widest point on release to its 20^th week in 1,213 screens almost a third of the screens Digger opened; Birdman took $42.34m and $103.21m worldwide

2015’s The Revenant opened $39.82m (after 2 weeks on platform) taking $183.63m and $532.95m WW

Last year One Battle After Another opened $22m taking $72.91m and $213.21m worldwide, despite winning several Oscars including Best Picture its still lost about $100mm, this is the problem with these prestige films while its box office looks good, its budget was between $130m – $175m and marketing spend another $75m.

Surely the biggest problem for Digger is that despite the huge success of The Revenant, Alejandro G. Iñárritu films aren’t mainstream films and having Leonardo DiCaprio as the lead is very different to Tom Cruise as the lead for Digger as Leonardo made a much wider mix of films, the problem is Tom Cruise fans can only see Tom Cruise the action star they struggle to see him as anything else, despite The Color of Money, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia.

Despite starring in 14 films over the last 15 years his fans can’t see him as anything other than Ethan Hunt and Maverick, it similar to the issues many action stars of the 90s had like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Nicolas Cage (post Con Air) had, audiences came out to see them in action films but didn’t for other films. Reminds me of the line from Say Anything “Diane Court doesn’t go out with guys like you. She’s a brain! Trapped in the body of a gameshow hostess”.

The budget for Digger started at $125m but increased to between $160m-$180m due to production delays. Digger needed to take about $350m worldwide to be profitable, as Tom Cruise gets first dollar gross.

Warner have had a poor 2026 at the box office, the only studio not to have a $100m film this year, with flops The Bride and Supergirl, but it does have a new version of The Cat in the Hat in November and Dune Part 3 in December that will be box office hits and Paramount will get the credit for Warner Bros upcoming hits, while Warner Bros will get the blame for further flops as was when Disney acquired 20^th Century Fox.

Of course, there are far bigger things at play, after the judge allowed Skydance to acquire Warner Bros. on October 6^th, ahead of studio heads Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, who had been at Warner Bros. since 2022 leaving the studio just over 6 months after One Battle Afte Another won the studio its first Best Picture Oscar since 2012’s Argo.

Last year Warner Bros had a fantastic year mixing original films with tentpoles having 7 $100m+ films taking 21% share of the BO with Sinners, A Minecraft Movie, Weapons and Final Destination: Bloodlines, but then this year they have struggled with a similar mix of films including Wuthering Heights, The Bride and Supergirl, but then in 2027 have Remain, Panic Carefully, Godzilla x Kong, F.A.S.T, Bad Faries, Oceans Prequel, Man of Tomorrow, A Minecraft Movie 2, Shiver, The Conjuring: The First Communion, The Great Beyond, Margie Claus and Nancy Meyers film all boosting Paramount’s BO.

Last year One Battle After Another opened $48.5m worldwide from 74 territories.

Opened $12m from 74 territories and $20m worldwide; Australia $550,589; Italy $599,691; UAE $355,455

• Resident Evil – Sony Pictures

Dropped 45.2% in its third weekend $12.61m and $125.01m

494^th biggest third weekend between Lilo & Stitch (2002) and Mamma Mia! (close to X-Men, The Grudge, Smile and The Conjuring: Last Rites).

2025’s Weapons dropped 37% $15.4m and $115.68m of $151.57m and $270.07m worldwide

2022’s Barbarian dropped 25.6% $4.83m and $28.46m of $40.84m and $45.35m worldwide

The previous Resident Evil films played far stronger internationally taking in the US and $1.28bn worldwide.

Horror films have taken $1.166bn to date in 2026 more than $1.163bn in 2017, the first billion-dollar year for horror, and 82% of $1.426bn in 2025.

Last year Weapons took $18.4m from 73 territories $59.7m total, and $148.8m worldwide; UK $8.3m; Mexico $5.5m; France $4m; Spain $3.9m; Australia $3.8m.

Took $16.6m international from 65 territories in 7,900+ screens and $245.5m total worldwide; UK $15m; Mexico $11m; Germany $6m; Australia $7.4m; France $6.6m; Spain $6.3m.

• Heart of the Beast – Paramount Pictures

Dropped 45.7% in its second weekend $10.87m and $38.27m

Its Brad Pitt’s first film since last years F1 dropped 54,.8% $25.78m and $109.28m of $189.64m and $634.14m worldwide.

Brad Pitt starred in David Ayer’s Fury in 2014 dropped 43.6% $13.35m and $46.4m taking $85.81m and $211.81m worldwide.

2022’s Dog dropped 31.7% $10.15m and $30.93m of $61.77m and $84.55m

2014’s Lone Survivor dropped 41.7% $22.05m and $72.86m of $125.09m and $154.8m worldwide

Heart of the Beast was expected to perform strong in the US, but Brad Pitt and the strong reviews and positive word of mouth helped it hold well internationally.

Took $32.3m from 66 territories; France $7.6m; Mexico $5.1m; UK $5.5m; Spain $3.6m; Australia $3.3m

• Primetime – A24

Dropped 57.5% in its second weekend $8m and $34.08m

Primetime took $1,771 less than Digger, but as Digger took almost 50% from IMAX/PLF/Vista Vision Primetime had a far better second weekend despite dropping 57.5%.

Robert Pattinson’s third film of the year after The Drama and The Odyssey (with Dune Part 3 still to come)

The Drama dropped 40% in its second weekend $8.6m and $30.74m of $48.1m and $134.67 worldwide and Mickey 17 dropped 60.9% $7.43m and $33.21m of $46.14m and $133.54m worldwide,

As the film is about when To Catch a Predator become a TV phenomenon in 2006 its will be all about Robert Pattinson’s star power with its international box office as while it was a massive story in the US it wasn’t as big internationally.

UK Box Office Top 10

Box Office Preview

After Spider-Man Brand New Day was #1 for 6 weeks running it will be the fifth weekend running with a new #1.

The Social Reckoning sequel to 2010’s The Social Network, based on the 2021 Facebook leak by whistleblower Frances Haugen and reporting by Jeff Horwitz.

A lot has happened with social media and Facebook since 2010’s The Social Network and Aaron Sorkin had been planning a sequel: since 2019. The problem making a film or TV series about a live event it’s still continuing as 2021’s She Said, about the New York Times investigation that exposed Harvey Weinstein, which ended with the case still live. It was also similar to TV dramas like The Dropout, which ended before Elizabeth Holmes had gone to prison.

The Social Network opened to £2,486,454 at #2 (including £382,605 previews) in 2010 (£3,347,310 inflated) taking £10,306,540/£13,874,855; Despicable Me #1 £3,664,376

It is Mikey Madison’s first film since winning Best Actress for Anora; Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong starred in last year’s Deliver Me from Nowhere. It is Aaron Sorkin’s first film since The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Being the Ricardos, Netflix, and Amazon; The Trial of the Chicago 7 was made by Paramount Pictures, selling it to Netflix.

Aaron Sorkin also directed 2018’s Molly’s Game opened £2,283,420 (including £1,149,871 previews) taking £3,788,031.

The problem with a news story that is all over the media is that it could make people feel they already know the story. It is about a whistleblower, which makes it far less cinematic. 1999’s The Insider, 1983’s Silkwood, 1976’s All the President’s Men, 2000’s Erin Brockovich, 2017’s The Post, 2019’s Dark Waters, and 2016’s Spotlight managed to do both, but they were all made years after the events. The events featuring in The Social Reckoning are in daily news.

Factual adult dramas have struggled at the cinema in recent years. But the trailers have been seen by millions before The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Early reactions have been positive but said its not as good as The Social Network.

With Verity likely to drop 40%-50% in its second weekend The Social Reckoning opening with £2m could see it open #1 with Verity close behind in #2

Buzz has been building for months for supernatural psychological horror starring Jessica Chastain Other Mommy as the trailer was scaring audiences before The Odyssey and that could see it have a similar opening as Obsession. The film has similarities to 2009’s Coraline with the Other Mother who traps a young girl in a twisted parallel world.

The director said the film relies just as heavily on dread and paranoia with the uncertainty over whether audiences are looking at Ursula or her supernatural counterpart, so it’s more of a social horror rather than a gory horror so that could help it play to a wide audience who don’t do horrors as Obsession; Obsession opened £1,342,900 taking £20.03m (almost 15 times its opening) Other Mommy is unlikely to repeat that but could attract the same female audience who saw Verity opening between £1.5m-£2m.

With the arrival of Other Mommy, Resident Evil will likely drop 50% in its fourth weekend. With Heart of the Beast dropping 40%-50% in its third weekend #5. Digger will surely drop 60% in its second weekend as it will lose many of its IMAX/PLF screens and it took a large percentage from those formats.

Action period drama starring Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Jonny Lee Miller, and Katherine Waterston and directed by Paul Greengrass, after having a disappointing opening in the US last month and receiving mixed reviews its unlikely to do much better in the UK despite the strong British cast.

 Coming Soon

• Clayface – Warner Bros

Body horror based on the DC character starring Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan, and directed by James Watkins (The Woman In Black and Speak No Evil). It’s the third film DC Universe (DCU) after Superman and Supergirl.

It’s of course a very different comic book film which will surely be a positive as DC has always struggled to make regular comic-book films as Marvel have the market, with a budget of $40m far less than Superman or Supergirl.

Mike Flanagan write the screenplay who has previously written several recent horrors including Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep and The Life of Chuck. Mike Flanagan was attached to direct but was replaced by James Watkins as he was already committed to direct The Exorcist: Martyrs. Mike Flanagan has recently distanced himself from Clayface saying that it wasn’t his version.

Clayface is expected to appear in The Batman II next year.

The teaser trailer was released in April.

It was original set for release in September but moved to October to get the Halloween boost.

Clayface while known to comic-boo fans isn’t well known to other audiences, saying that Venom managed to find a wider audience beyond comic-book fans and the body horror story could attract a wide audience.  

• Ali G: Who Iz I? – Sony Pictures/MGM

British comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Morgana Robinson and written and directed by Sacha Baron Cohen. It’s a sequel to 2002’s Ali G Indahouse, it is a character he originally played on the Channel 4 comedy series The 11 O’clock Show (running between 1998 and 2000) and Da Ali G Show (in 2002).

Amazon released Borat sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm in 2020 straight to streaming.

A boycott campaign started in August to try to get the film banned by exhibitors calling it calling Cohen’s dreadlocked wannabe hip-hop star a racist caricature, failing to understand that is the whole point of the character. Sacha Baron Cohen’s uncomfortable comedy plays on a long-standing tradition of Jewish subversive satire, very much like Mel Brooks to weaponised bigotry against the bigots themselves. Mel Brooks famously used outrageous portrayals of Nazis and religious persecution to disarm hate by making it look completely ridiculous.

Baron Cohen takes the same concept but applies it to the real world using a “Trojan Horse” technique. Instead of putting actors on a stage, he puts himself into character to see how real, ordinary people react when confronted with extreme bigotry, In Da Ali G Show, Borat gets the entire crowd of an American country bar to enthusiastically sing along to a fictional song called “Throw the Jew Down the Well”.

The campaigners focussed on the aesthetic of the character missing the actual mechanism of the joke. As he appears non-threatening and simple-minded, his interview subjects lower their guards. They believe they are talking to someone beneath them. In doing so, authority figures frequently let slip their true condescension, latent racism, classism, or sheer ignorance. They say things on camera that they would never say if they thought an astute journalist was watching. The joke is never on the culture Ali G mimics; the joke is on the powerful elites who show their true faces when they think nobody is paying attention.

Most people growing up over the last 20 years with Ali G must understand what his character is as seen by him appearing famously on This Morning. While other times he has appeared on chat shows in character.

2002’s Ali G Indahouse opened £3,231,673/£6,033,963 taking £10,170,779/£18,990,196

2006’a Borat opened £6,242,344/£10,267,182 taking £23,863,341/£39,249,561

2009’s Bruno opened £5,000,229/£7,362,470 taking £15,786,364/£23,244,260

2012’s The Dictator opened £4,963,745/£6,241,695 taking £11,016,175/£13,852,364

• Wildwood – Black Bear

Stop-motion dark fantasy featuring the voices of Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, and Richard E. Grant, directed by Travis Knight, based on Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis’s novel.

It’s the first Laika animated film since 2018’s Missing Link, which flopped at the box office despite positive reviews. Its release date didn’t help—opening a week after the Dumbo reimagining and the same weekend as Wonder Park and Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun.

Prior to Missing Link, Laika made four animated films for Universal Pictures that were both box office and critical successes: 2009’s Coraline, 2012’s ParaNorman, 2014’s The Boxtrolls, and 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings. They weren’t the massive box office hits that other animated films were, but they were never going to be—stop-motion isn’t as popular with younger audiences as regular animation.

It has its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. It’s the first Laika film to be a 12A, so it’s playing to an older audience than other Laika films.

The film has been in development since 2011, after Laika acquired the rights and made a trailer for the book’s release.

The trailer was released in May, with 179m views, the biggest trailer launch ever for a fully stop-motion animated film. The final trailer was released in September.

It’s targeting the older tween/teen audience who enjoy fantasy films like The Golden Compass, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Mortal Engines all of which struggled to find their target audiences. Because it plays to the in-between demographic between tweens and teens, it will be too old for some and too young for others. That’s probably why it took so long to make, and why it was made separately from Laika’s deal with Universal Pictures.

In the US, it’s been sold as event cinema, similar to the Coraline re-release in 2024. It will be interesting to see if Black Bear does the same in the UK—or just gives it a regular cinema release and struggles to connect immediately, hoping Halloween and half-term will boost its appeal, being very different to anything else on release for tweens and teens.

While younger audiences will have seen Richard E. Grant in the latest series of Celebrity Traitors that will surely help boost its media coverage, especially after he admitted he was a traitor in the first episode.

• Ghosts: The Possession Of Button House – Lionsgate

British fantasy comedy and continuation of the TV comedy Ghosts; starring Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Lolly Adefope, Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby and directed by Simon Hynd.

When Ghosts ended its five series run in 2013 it was one of Britains most watched sitcoms averaging 6.62m on BBC1. The 2019 Christmas special had 3.92m increased to 7.2m watching it on demand. So as many other films based on popular TV shows it has a huge inbuilt fanbase, the question is will they go and see it in the cinema or wait to watch it on TV in a few months’ time.

Films based on TV shows had mixed success at the box office and critically from success of The Inbetweeners, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and Paddington to many failures including The Avengers in 1998, 2015’s The Bad Education Movie and 2016’s Dad’s Army.

The problem with many of these TV shows work well as 25-minute comedies but don’t when are extended into feature length despite extended Christmas TV comedies being successful. No one expected Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie to be success it was opening with £4.3m in June 2014.